


I Never Imagined

by PFDiva



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Post-SIH 38, Season: Spring in Hieron, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 18:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20157931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PFDiva/pseuds/PFDiva
Summary: Samothes find an all-too-familiar stranger on the beaches of Aubade





	I Never Imagined

A man washed up on the beaches of Aubade. Samothes had expected someone to arrive when the starshield fell, but not this soon.

The man on the beach had short blond hair, and was covered in scars and greenery. Samothes wondered what had happened to him before he'd been killed by the sword, but he went to the man's side anyway.

"Are you alright? Hello?"

The man had gotten to hands and knees by the time Samothes reached him, and he looked up, tears in his eyes. It was with a shock that Samothes realized this wasn't a stranger at all. It was his husband. His beautiful hair shorn, his face scarred with greenery that bloomed in unpleasant and painful-looking ways.

Samot sat back on his heels while Samothes stared, turning his face away as if ashamed. Samothes sank to his knees before his husband, aching to reach out and yet not daring to do so.

"Has it been so long since we spoke of a gift for our Hadrian?" Samothes asked.

Samot shook his head, making a thick noise that sounded of tears and attempts to speak. His tears flowed freely before he covered his face in his hands. He gasped then, and wailed, leaning towards Samothes as if he too wanted to reach out but also didn't dare.

Samothes pulled Samot into his arms hard, rocking his husband while he howled his misery into Samothes' chest.

It took a very long time for Samothes to get anything coherent from Samot. It turned out that Maelgwyn was dead. And Samol was dead. And Samot's stars were ruined beyond reason. And Samot had tried to crystallize Hieron into a place where the gods could not be, and was deeply humiliated not only by the failure of his task, but by having been confronted in his failure by Hadrian.

It was a lot for Samothes to take in. It was strange that he had no tears to shed for his son or father, but he'd already mourned his separation from them, knowing his chances of meeting them again were so slim as to be insignificant. Samot's humiliation was not his, though it seemed Hadrian had taken Samothes' words to heart and was deciding for himself.

Which was not to say that Samothes' heart didn't ache for Samot's misery. It did. But it was sympathy for a loved one in pain, not pain of his own.

Still, he held Samot close, his fingers combing through Samot's shorter locks, occasionally catching on the greenery growing from Samot's skin. It felt strange. Interesting, but strange. He would ask about it later, when Samot's suffering was diminished.

Samot eventually calmed himself with a murmured thankyou. He shifted as if uncertain of his welcome in Samothes' arms, but Samothes tightened his grip, and Samot melted into his chest.

"I never imagined I would hold you again," Samothes murmured, wonderingly, into Samot's hair.

Samot huffed out a laugh, "And it turns out to be like this." Samothes tipped Samot's face up to see the wry disdain in his eyes. Samothes caressed that beloved face.

"This is not so bad."

Samot turned his face into Samothes' hand as if shy, "Flatterer."

"Always," Samothes replied, pressing a kiss to Samot's temple and making him smile.


End file.
